Written for the scientific layperson, Stephen Hawking provides a high level overview of modern theories about our universe in his book The Grand Design. His analogies help make difficult concepts more comprehensible for the average reader. The degree of difficulty increases throughout the book, and peaks in the final chapter. What that means is that you wouldn’t want to start reading at the last chapter or you’d be completely lost. What it also means is that Hawking is an excellent educator, slowly feeding the reader, while steadily increasing the complexity of his argument toward a logical conclusion about the origins of the universe.

This book received a good amount of attention when it debuted, primarily because Hawking basically stated that the universe didn’t need the assistance of a god or gods to become what it is today. While other educators, like Richard Dawkins, emphasize the modern Darwinian understandings of evolution to make their case for how life and the universe exists, Hawking spends most of his time in scientific theories and laws. Referencing quantum physics, along with several other scientific branches, Hawking shows us a slightly different way of understanding the universe. All of which is congruent with our current understandings of evolution.

The last chapter is a logic trap for those who still adhere to superstitious belief. In the end, he posits the question (rhetorically), if a god made the universe, what made the god?

There are laws that make up our universe – some of which we still don’t understand or know even exist. As best we know, we’re part of a great expansion. From the big bang, we are the consequences, the results, of time and matter. Everything exists because of a natural structure to things.

If we – all – are on a continuum of a great expansion, are we simply a reaction to a stimulus? Is our existence, our thoughts, our actions, simply nature playing out its natural, violent rhythm? I think the answer is yes and no. Yes, in that everything we are and do is a result – a reaction – of a structured, lawful existence of everything. No, in that the future is unknown and un-lived.

There is a dichotomy between our existence and our behavior being predictable in hindsight, and the unknown chaotic future powered by our choices. A future that is most certainly predestined by the structured chaos of our universe, and its still mysterious properties.

For me it reinforces the meaning of life. That is, to fulfill the purpose of our existence – to live vigorously to the end.